David Gold, multi-million pound business man, a veteran of club ownership, Co-Owner of West Ham United and cult hero?
Over the past couple of seasons, the East London born and bred Hammer has earnt an almost Cult like status amongst our fans for his various bizarre, strange and quite hilarious run ins with fans of all clubs both on Social Media and in real life.
The ownership’s affiliation with social media, mainly Twitter, places them in a position closer to the fans than any other Premier League chairmen, with Gold himself on the site, as well as David Sullivan’s two children Jack and David Junior.
However, this does have its disadvantages for them when it comes to being ridiculed by fans. But it is our vice chairman who receives the utmost attention and this is because of the way that he replies to many a moaning Hammer or one that is taking the Mickey.
Many fans feel that criticism of the board is unjust due to where they picked the Club up from and where we are now, but one can’t say that Gold, 80, doesn’t encourage the Claret & Blue Army on Twitter.
Cast your mind back to deadline day of the 2015 winter transfer window and the board are chasing a deal for Tottenham Hotspur’s Emmanuel Adebayor deep into the night.
A tweet from @davidgold tantalizes Hammers fans with excitement, as it read “Don’t go to bed, dg”. But nothing happened that night, prompting many fans to joke that they weren’t going to bed until instructed to by David himself.
Humorously, Gold told Hammers that they could finally now go to sleep the following Deadline Day, as we captured the likes of Michail Antonio, Alex Song, Victor Moses and Nikica Jelavic all within the final 24 hours.
Similarly, the Chairman instructed Hammers not to go to Church at the end of last summer when the Window concluded on a Sunday, causing controversy. But his greatest moments surely stem from non-Transfer related situations.
In the summer of 2015, Gold was delighted to personally reveal the signing of Pedro Obiang from Sampdoria, posting a picture of Italy International defender Angelo Ogbonna instead. Just to save his blushes, Gold decided to sign Ogbonna just weeks after accidentally revealing it in the first place.
Another thing that the 80-year-old doesn’t exuberate on Social Media is compassion, as a bereaved Hammers fan asked for a Retweet from the man himself about his recently deceased Goldfish.
However, Gold didn’t warm to this heart-warming story and his reply would be Retweeted over two thousand times, reading “No. You can’t have an RT for such a ridiculous reason. PS, are you sure it’s dead dg”.
While comments about finding his Wife in the Swimming Pool with his best friend on the same day that he discovered his “farther” stealing his shares are sarcastically repeated daily on West Ham Twitter, a recent altercation with a fan even made tabloid Newspapers.
One budding Twitter user decided to try to fool the veteran with a pun based on Channel Four Sitcom The Inbetweeners, with a picture of the show’s protagonist Will McKenzie and the Account asking Gold to wish him luck on his first day at School.
The former Birmingham City Chairman fell for the trick and replied with a message of good will for the fictional Character, as the Football World collectively laughed.
However, my personal favourite David Gold moment came just months after the signing of Michail Antonio, as Gold fell at the mercy of yet another prankster.
The Ann Summers Founder was asked to RT for a missing person in the Manchester area and did so without bothering to check whether the person in the picture was 2016/2017 Hammer of the Year Antonio or not, and as they say the rest is history.
So, with our journey through the Weird and Wonderful World of David Gold complete, one thing we have learned is that he does divide opinion.
Whether or not David Gold will be in charge of our Football club this time next year is debatable, but one thing is for sure, you should certainly never change Mr. Gold.